AS PROMISED - SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM SCOTTISH MILITARY DISASTERS - > Book Extract
* He was an Eighteenth Century Scottish Forrest Gump - Stobo
** Here's one that combines Canadian and Scottish themes - Tunnelling for Victory
*** Those who enjoyed reading about the Royal Scots’ Armistice Day battle with the Bolsheviks in 1918might be interested in the same fight as seen from a Canadian viewpoint - Canada’s Winter War
***** Read about the blunder that made Canada an easy target for invasion from the United States - Undefended Border
****** Read about the Second World War's Lord McHaw Haw
******* Serious questionmarks over the official version of one the British Army's most dearly held legends - The Real Mackay?
********** It's been a while since I posted a new article. This one's called Temptation
********** Read about how the most Highland of the Highland regiments during the Second World War fared in the Canadian Rockies - Drug Store Commandos.
************* We now have a Guide to Scottish military museums on this site.
************** Just weeks before the outbreak of the First World War one of Britain's most bitter enemies walked free from a Canadian jail - Dynamite Dillon
*************** Click to read - - Victoria's Royal Canadians - about one of the more unusual of the British regiments.
*************** Read an article about the Royal Scots and their desperate fight against the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day 1918 - Forgotten War A second article, looks at the same battle but through a Canadian lens .
***************No-one has got back to me with a German source for the claim that the kilties during the First World War were known as The Ladies from Hell . See My Challenge to You
***************** A map showing the old Scottish regimental recruiting districts can now be seen by clicking Recruiting Area Map .
****************** The Fighting Men 1746 article now includes the estimated strengths of the Jacobite clan regiments which marched into England in 1745 See Clan Strengths
****************** **I've posted a fresh article - Scotland’s Forgotten Regiments. Guess what it's about.
******************** The High Court Hearing in London in May 2012 attracted a lot of visitors to this site. See Batang Kali Revisited
********************* Why not have a look at Book of the Year
Motorcycle Safety
Now, forgive me if I've suggested this before in this blog. But I think people should have to pass their motorcycle test before they can drive a four wheel vehicle. On a motorcycle it doesn't matter whether the biker or the motorist is to blame, it's usually the former who comes off worse in any accident. This means that caution and road safety awareness become deep rooted in a biker's soul. It makes them far better drivers when they do graduate to four wheels. Of course, the snag is that the British roads in winter are not always safe for motorcycles. I had to give up my bike because it didn't fancy sliding through a junction on black ice in the early morning and under the wheels of an articulated lorry. But where there's a will there's a way and think of the lives saved if folk drove a little more safely.
Sooks
They tell you work hard and do a good job and you'll be OK. It's not true. The incompetents who have self-awareness to realise just what they are often do better. Instead of expecting a good job well done to be the key to success, they start early in sucking up to the bosses. It's amazing how well it works. I wouldn't even say the bosses fall for it. Many bosses fear the competent because they don't want anyone who could take their job anywhere near them in the promotion stakes. I remember once the Big Boss, the capo di tutti capi, came to visit. His accompanying high powered management team behaved more like a troop of red-arsed baboons fighting over who would get to pick the fleas off the Alpha Male than anything else. I was right to despair as the company was sold not long afterwards to its inept but deep-pocketed rival.
Shameless Plug #9 - With Wellington was among the books recommended as an excellent Christmas present by the prestigious The Society for Army Historical Research. There was another mysterious surge in sales of With Wellington last summer. At the end of May it was the third best selling book about the Peninsular War on the website of one of Britain's biggest booksellers and Number Eighteen in the table for all Napoleonic books. Last December's sales surge turned out to be a combination of the venerable Scots Magazine declaring it Book of the Month in its January 2015 edition and a highly favourable review in the Napoleonic Association's newsletter. Scots Magazine's reviewer, nature writer and author, Jim Crumley, declared "I don't much care for military memoirs, but I could not put this one down". Other reviewers have been equally enthusiastic - "If you are interested in the memoirs of British soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars this book is a MUST!... You don't get many Napoleonic memoirs as good as this" and "It is the most candid memoir of the British Army I have ever read... does not pull any punches ... highly entertaining, but also thought provoking..." To have a look at the full reviews check out more about With Wellington
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